Inspiring Older Readers
A Walk On The Wild Side by Nelson Algren
Nelson Algren (1909 – 1981) is probably best known as a novelist of the world of the outsider – the poor, the dispossessed, the addicted. He is something of a cult writer in terms of his influence on the literary life of the bohemian and beatnik generation in the Sixties and early 70s and the title of this book was, of course, adopted by uber-New York bohemian musician, Lou Reed for his most famous solo offering.
However, although it was written in 1956, the book isn’t about contemporary issues but harks back to the 30s Depression years. It takes the form of a bildungsroman, centring on the life and times of Dove Linklorn who makes the journey from Texas to New Orleans and into a life of extraordinary happenings in the underbelly of the city. If you’re familiar with the writing of John Irving ( The World According To Garp, A Prayer For Owen Meany, The Cider House Rules etc.), you’ll recognise the format and approach – Irving was clearly a great fan.
Talking about his own creation in a later forward, Algren spilled the beans on what he saw as the core themes of the book:
"The book asks why lost people sometimes develop into greater human beings than those who have never been lost in their whole lives. Why men who have suffered at the hands of other men are the natural believers in humanity, while those whose part has been simply to acquire, to take all and give nothing, are the most contemptuous of mankind."
A ‘gut radical’ in terms of politics, throughout his life Algren was drawn to speak out for the voiceless and dispossessed. What he brought to the debate about poverty and social exclusion was a refusal to judge and a willingness to understand. A Walk On The Wild Side was preceded by a book about urban drug addiction, The Man With The Golden Arm, which was also made into a film starring Frank Sinatra. It seems likely that his affair with Simone De Beauvoir, which coincided with the writing of AWOTWS, was influenced by her ideas and input in much the same way as Algren influenced her book, The Mandarins. But it has to be said that reviews of the book, both contemporary and more recent, have not been universally positive. Thomas Mallen, for example, writing about Algren’s career in The Wall Street Journal has his doubts about the book:
‘Midway through their involvement, Algren wrote his last important book, “A Walk on the Wild Side” (1956). Sales were enormous, but some critics were harsh. It’s a peculiar, blowsy novel, the picaresque story of freight-hopping Dove Linkhorn, a Southern-fried Joseph Andrews who winds up performing in a live sex show in New Orleans. Amid the pimps and madams and johns, Algren inserts some vivid minor characters (Dockery, the hygienic, doll-collecting bartender) and executes flashes of memorable writing: “Dove stood rubbing the back of his head: a huge thought was struggling to live in it.” (On occasion he can almost sound like Gerard Manley Hopkins: “A rain puddle made fever fire below a last porch light left burning.”) But the book’s violence can’t galvanize its lumbering, episodic movement, and it never gathers the cumulative force of “The Man With the Golden Arm.”’
On the whole these are fair criticisms and there are certainly passages where the writing is treacly and it becomes a chore to wade through but I would suggest these are less common than those parts of the book that reek of authenticity and have the power to really transport.
I haven’t read The Man With The Golden Arm but based on my experience of reading AWOTWS, I’m pretty sure that I will try and do so at some point in the future. But maybe, just maybe, a good biography of Algren might be a better bet than both?
Terry Potter
January 2020